


if you'll be my star, i'll be your sky

by crownedcrusader



Category: Free!
Genre: Gen, M/M, actually this kind of is more of a strong platonic bond than romantic fic?, if you havent read it this might not make sense, intensely references high speed, no matter how you look at it in canon they care about each other, this is kinda just focusing on that, tumblr drabble
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-01
Updated: 2015-08-01
Packaged: 2018-04-12 08:50:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4472990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crownedcrusader/pseuds/crownedcrusader
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>'I wanted to go to a place where Haru wasn't,' Makoto had said years and years ago, the night Haru almost lost his best friend. </p><p>Tonight, Haru decides that the ocean will never again be a place where Makoto is and Haru is not.</p>
            </blockquote>





	if you'll be my star, i'll be your sky

**Author's Note:**

> This strongly references High!Speed (2?). I'd rather not give out spoilers, so don't read further if you haven't read High!Speed and want to.
> 
> All you need to know is that at one point, Makoto was feeling like a useless older brother because the twins started drifting out to sea and he was too scared to save them, so Haru saved them instead. Later, he left home and went to the shore, deeply worrying his mother and Haru alike, who went all over town to find him. Eventually Haru found him, and Makoto told him that he wanted to go to a place that Haru wasn't (i.e., to see if he could exist without him). However, it's a pretty frightening thing to hear, because there are all sorts of implications that a phrase like that can have. But Haru got him to go home, and it seemed that that was the end of that. 
> 
> Still, a very scary thing, for Haru to think that he could have lost his best friend. 
> 
> Also available on my tumblr, at http://crownedcrusader.tumblr.com/post/125567351940/can-you-write-a-drabble-where-makoto-and-haru

Haru wonders if it’s always been like this.

The stars are beautiful tonight, the sea reflects them and creates a horizon that seems to be just an extension of the universe itself. He thinks he could stay out here forever, feeling small and overwhelmed and overstimulated and unimportant to the world.

It’s a good feeling.

It’s as if out here, can be really, truly _free_ , because nothing he can do will change the way the stars hit the sea. His existence is not the center of his universe; he simply exists, and he’s happy to continue on so long as he can enjoy what parts of the universe he gets to see.

He feels like he could dive into the ocean and swim forever, at the median between the sky and the sea; floating so that he can feel the air on his back and the water at his belly, and see the boundary up close for himself the further he swims out.

He thinks he would do it, if not for Makoto.

Haru wonders if Makoto, who’s always been able to know his heart, his mind (his soul?), knows what he was thinking. He wonders if he knows just how close Haru sometimes comes to giving up his lot on land to spend it in the sea instead.

He wonders if Makoto would listen to it like poetry, if he heard it. Makoto’s always loved poetry, loved metaphors, loved the complexities of language.

But he’s always been a worrier—and afraid of the ocean, no less—so Haru doesn’t say a word. If Makoto knows this wish of his, then it’s up to Makoto to ask. Haru certainly won’t bring it up. It would just upset him.

But there’s something eerie about the night. As Haru stares out into the sea and dreams of entering it but finds he can’t bring himself to, he’s reminded of a night when the reverse was true.

A night when Haru had run over town looking for Makoto.

A night when Haru was terrified he’d lost him.

A night when Haru had found him at the shoreline.

‘I wanted to go to a place where Haru wasn’t,’ Makoto had said, eyes eerily calm as he stared into the sea, into the sky, into the boundary between them.

Haru wonders why there is no thought of poetry now, when he remembers Makoto wanting to leave him.

He still doesn’t know how long Makoto had planned on staying away.

He wonders if Makoto had planned on staying within it forever.

“The stars are beautiful tonight, aren’t they?” Makoto asks with that same soft smile he’s always given him.

Haru doesn’t say a word. Instead, he stops.

Makoto stops a step ahead of him, and turns to look at his friend. “Haru? Is something wrong?” he asks, confused. “I thought you liked the look of the ocean at night.”

“It’s not that great.” As he lets an uncomfortable silence grow between them, Haru continues to stare into the sea, daring it to tempt Makoto into it again. It’s hypocrisy, he knows. But he also knows that Makoto’s reasons for wanting to leave all that time ago are very different from his own.

He wanted to leave but knew he would miss Makoto.

Makoto had wanted to leave so that he could be away from him.

Haru knows it’s ridiculous to equate Makoto’s feelings with abandonment. He knows that Makoto had just wanted to know if he really could exist without Haru as a constant in his life. He knows that he’s not nearly as articulate as Makoto deserves, as talkative as he should be, as forthcoming with his feelings as he knows is right.

He has no right to be upset about it when he doesn’t express his appreciation nearly often enough.

But he can’t get that night out of his head.

‘I want to go somewhere Haru isn’t,’ echoes in his head again, and on impulse, he extends a hand to Makoto.

“Come with me.”

It says something about Makoto’s implicit trust that he takes Haru’s hand, even though it’s clear Haru plans on leading him closer to the ocean; closer to his fears.

But Haru wants to prove it to Makoto and the sea alike: Never again will the sea be a place where Makoto is and that Haru is not.

For once, when Haru strips down near the water’s edge, he stops only with shoes off and pant-legs rolled up. Makoto follows suit, though a troubled expression appears on his face till the moon and the water’s reflection show Haru’s face.

Now is no different than any time before. Haru’s quiet companionship is enough to steady him.

Haru leads Makoto into the water.

“It’s kind of cold,” Makoto says after they’ve gotten in up to their ankles. “We shouldn’t go in any deeper, Haru. I don’t want these pants to get salt-water in them…”

“We won’t go further,” Haru says. He stops, facing the horizon side-by-side his most trusted friend. “This is far enough.”

If Makoto is puzzled by his behavior, he doesn’t say anything. Instead, he seems to be watching Haru more than the sea or the sky or the boundary between them.

They stand there for a while, Haru focused on the sea and Makoto focused on him. Finally, though, Makoto lets out a sneeze and Haru remembers how much more sensitive to the cold he is. Wordlessly, he takes Makoto’s hand and takes him back to shore, their wet feet making perfect, parallel tracks in the sand.

It may be Makoto who loves literature, who loves metaphors, who reads too much into things and worries more than he should.

But Haru knows symbolism when he sees it, and he’s never been more grateful to see evidence in the sand that Makoto came with him out of the sea.

The ocean remains behind them, still trying to lap at their heels even as they walk away, and Haru decides that he needs to be more forceful in his display. The sea must learn that it cannot yearn for Makoto the same way Haru does.

So he holds Makoto’s hand a little tighter and pulls back, Makoto stopping just a pace too late. He rebounds backwards half a step at most, but it’s enough for him to trip on the sand as he turns and for Haru to grab his shoulder to steady him.

“I’ve got you,” he says, the words heavy and unfamiliar on his tongue. There was never a need to say it before, so he doesn’t know how to voice reassurance without sounding stiff. But there’s a pleasant surprise on Makoto’s face, and it encourages him enough to keep on. “You steady now?” Even as he asks, his hands don’t move, still frozen in the miming of a waltz.

Makoto has never been a particularly affectionate person. Haru sees it when he refrains from joining a group hug till last, when he looks uncomfortable at Nagisa’s invasion of his personal space, and most of all, he sees it in Makoto’s interaction with him. Even as close as they are, hugs are scarce, and hand-to-hand contact is limited to when Makoto pulls him from the water’s edge.

So it says a lot about Makoto’s current level of comfort that he doesn’t pull away.

“You look like you’re trying to dance with me,” Makoto says, voice and expression soft and pliant as silk. Even when his voice takes on a teasing lilt, he never does lose that gentle disposition. “Did you bring me out here just to try to dance with me?”

“You’d like that,” Haru says flatly.

But he doesn’t pull away.

By the time the pair heads home, the waves have already washed away the set of parallel footprints. But the waves cannot take everything at once.

It takes an hour longer to erase the imprints of a clumsy four-step, deep-set and repeated into the sand as it was.  


End file.
